Process for forming dentures



Nov. 9, 1965 R. TENCATE PROCESS FOR FQRMING DENTURES Filed Feb. 1, 1962 ,W .WHL Q, .//A////f//Kl mi TQM Qw\v 7 QN N Q l /JL v. Q z S XSS Al Q .Em :mth .EME All @SQ QM mm WNDU INVENTOR.

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United States Patent O 3,217,067 PROCESS FOR FORMING DENTURES Raymond L. Tencate, 4947 W. Walton, Chicago, Ill. Filed Feb. 1, 1962, Ser. No. 170,351 4 Claims. (Cl. 264-18) This invention relates to a novel process for making such dentures.

Dentures, commonly as false teeth and dental plates are difficult and intricate devices to fabricate. They must be made to extremely close tolerances for `slight errors can result in tremendous discomfort for a patient. The dentures produced in accordance with the teachings of this invention are not only more accurate, but the molds from which they are made and the process by which they are made makes possible more rapid fabrication with less chance of breakage and structural deviation than has been possible with conventional molds and methods.

Many steps take place in fabricating a denture. To provide a background against which the improvements made available by this invention may be more readily understood a brief summary of a conventional procedure for fabricating a denture follows.

First an impression of the desired portion of the patients mouth using any standard impression material is taken. After the impre-ssion sets and has been cleaned it is packed with dental stone. When that hardens and cures, it provides a duplicate of the portion of the patients mouth of which the impression was taken. That positive is known as a master cast and forms the base upon which the desired denture is constructed.

The master cast is then overlaid with a thin layer of dental wax of the same thickness as the final denture will be. The wax is molded to conform to the master cast and at that stage is known as the trial baseplate. Since a trial baseplate is frequently removed from the master cast and fitted in the patients mouth, some sort of release agent such as talc must be provided between the master cast and the trial baseplate. When the trial baseplate has been properly conformed to the master cast, the cast and baseplate are positioned on an instrument known as an articulator, an adjustable device which simulates the movement and relative positions of a patients jaws. The articulator is adjusted to simulate a patients jaw movement by utilizing wax impressions, known as registrations or records, taken in a patients mouth by the dentist to enable such adjustment to be made in the laboratory. It is upon this instrument in accordance with well known techniques that the individual teeth are fitted to the trial baseplate. When all of the teeth have been fitted to the trial baseplate, a trial denture results. When the dentist and the technician have become satisfied that the trial denture has been properly constructed and aligned for fit and bite, the trial denture is sealed to the master cast with additional wax in a step commonly known as waxing-up.

The master cast is then invested in the lower half of a metal flask, a frame designed for that purpose, by plac ing the master cast in the flask and filling the fiask with plaster of Paris until the entire lower portion of the master cast becomes surrounded with and embedded in the plaster. The trial denture remains free of the investing medium.

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AS will become more apparent from the following, it is at this point that this invention and conventional practice part company.

When the plaster has set, the wax portion of the trial denture and the plaster of Paris itself is tinfoiled, that is covered with a very thin layer of tinfoil or a well known substitute therefore. The purpose of tinfoiling is to form a mold lining and to prevent the molding material to be described from contacting and sticking to the trial denture and the plaster of Pars. Thus prepared, the lower half of the flask is covered with its mating upper half and the flask is filled with a molding material such as dental stone or plaster of Paris. When that material has hardened, the fiask is immersed in boiling water and the wax of the trial denture and that wax used in the waxing-up step melts while the teeth of the trial denture remain embedded in the hardened molding material now to be referred to as the upper mold. The fiask is then opened and the molten wax removed. To insure complete removal of all wax and impurities, the upper mold and the master cast are cleaned with boiling water and detergent. With the wax gone, a space between the master cast (lower mold) and the newly formed upper mold exists. That spa-ce will define the shape of the final denture.

The previous tinfoiling step provides a lining for the upper mold. Tinfoil or a tinfoil substitute is then conformed to the lower mold. When used herein the term tinfoil contemplates the use of substitutes as well. Thus prepared, and having had waste gates or escape grooves provided in the land area of the plaster of Paris investing medium, the mold is ready to be filled with denture resin. Most frequently a heat curable acrylic resin formulation having the consistency of a dough is used. The dough is manually packed into the space between the upper and lower portions 0f the mold and it is usually the case that at least three such trial packings alternated with trial pressings on a denture press are necessary before the mold is finally properly packed. With the trial packing complete the resin is allowed to cure thereby forming the final denture. It is then deflasked, cleaned, polished and made ready for the patients mouth. Both during curing and during the subsequent removal of the denture from the mold, defiasking, great care must be exercised to avoid excessive pressures or unusual stresses on the mold and its contents.

By following the teachings of this invention a number of the steps just described are eliminated, and more important, generally more accurate, more comfortable dentures are obtained.

Therefore, it is the principal object of this invention to provide a novel method by which dentures may be fabricated.

It is a further object of this invention to simplify the procedure by which dentures are made and to provide a more accurate method for making them.

Yet another object of this invention is to provide a resilient fiexible mold technique by which dentures may be made.

A further object of this invention is to provide a silicone rubber mold technique by which more accurate dentures may be fabricated.

. The results obtained inthe practice of this invention are 3 surprising particularly when it is recalled that it has been the uniform belief in the field of prosthetic dentistry that the harder and less yieldable and exible a material used as a mold in which to make dentures, the more accurate and reliable would be the dentures themselves. The resilient mold and the resilient mold technique described in this application fly directly in the face of that long accepted belief and practice and makes it apparent that an even higher degree of accuracy is achievable when a flexible resilient mold is used as a medium in which to cast dentures. That is particularly so when the mold is fabricated of silicone rubber.

Of the numerous advantages arising from the practice of this invention, many will be specifically described and others will become apparent from the following description, discussion and drawings of which:

FIGURE 1 is a ilowsheet of the main steps in the preparation of a denture in accordance with this invention;

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of an invested waxedup master cast in a closed flask which has been filled with the mold forming material of this invention;

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the mold and ask in which a denture is to be fabricated after all of the trial denture wax has been boiled out; and

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a flask containing the tinfoiled master cast and the upper mold portion of this invention lled with denture resin.

As has been pointed out, this invention departs from conventional practice after the waxed-up master cast has been invested in the bottom of a flask. It is at that stage that the novel mold in which the final denture is to be cast must be made. FIG. l shows all of the major steps followed in fabricating a denture in accordance with this invention.

As best seen in FIG. 2, the mold forming structure includes the lower half of the flask 10, the master cast 12, the investing plaster of Paris 14 and trial denture 16 which incorporates trial baseplate 18 and teeth 20. With that prepared, the novel mold must be fabricated. The upper portion of the lower half of the flask is then lled With a resilient mold forming material 22 and the upper half of the flask 24 is set in place and the flexible mold forming material allowed to cure.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention, to 100 parts of a room temperature curable methyl polysiloxane of a viscosity of approximately 50,000 centipoises and a specific gravity of 1.13 at 77 F., there is added 0.5 part by weight of stannous octoate, the two ingredients being provided in amounts suicient to ll the entire unlled portion of the ask. A methyl polysiloxane and stannous octoate catalyst formulation corresponding to the above description is available `from Dow Corning under the designation RTV 502.

The methyl polysiloxane and catalyst are thoroughly mixed, the proportions stated giving a working period of about minutes and a vulcanization period of about 30 minutes. Those times may be varied by varying the proportion of catalyst used.

A layer of the catalyst and methyl polysiloxane mixture is then applied to the entire exposed surface of the invested waxed-up master cast, care being taken to avoid the entrapment of air particularly in the areas immediately adjacent the teeth. Then the entire remaining empty portion of the tiask is lled with additional methyl polysiloxane-catalyst mixture andthe upper portion of the flask is seated in position. It is to be noted that the laborious, impurity and inaccuracy introducing step of tinfoiling is unnecessary with the mold forming technique of this invention.

When the methyl polysiloxane has cured, the ask is immersed in boiling water for a period of approximately 5 minutes after which itis opened and the wax of thel trial denture and the waxing-up step is flushed out with boiling water and detergent, the teeth themselves being retained in the heat and moisture resistant flexible upper mold.

FIG. 3 shows the thoroughly cleaned mold ready to receive the denture resin. Itis to be noted that the flexible mold 26 holds the teeth 20. Space 28 is to be illed with denture resin. Conventional waste gates (not shown), areas into which the molding composition to be described may flow outwardly of the mold, are cut in the land areas of the plaster of Paris 14. Then, rather than tinfoiling the master cast, the plaster of Paris and the upper portion of the mold which holds the teeth, as has been the practice in the past, it is only necessary to tinfoil the invested master cast and the adjacent land surface of the plaster of Paris.

When the tinfoiling is completed, a self-curing acrylic denture resin is prepared and mixed in a quantity suicient to slightly overll the mold. As was pointed out earlier it has been the customary practice in the denture-making art to use an acrylic resin formulation which forms a partially cured dough which must be trial packed several times. In accordance with the teachings of this invention a self-curing fluid acrylic resin formulation which can be poured directly into the mold and which requires no trial packing is used.

One such suitable acrylic denture resin consists of a mixture of a finely screened spherical methyl methacrylate polymer of a molecular weight of approximately 600,000 and a methyl methacrylate monomer solution of a speciiic gravity of approximately 0.95. The monomer solution contains small amounts of additional materials and curing agents including ethylene dimethylacrylate and dimethylparatoluidene, each in an amount equal to about four tenths volume percent. Three parts of the methyl methacrylate polymer by volume are added to 1 part by volume of the monomer solution and thoroughly mixed. This uid self-curing mixture is then poured into the mold and the excess squeezed out by exerting pressure against the two halves of the flask in a ask press. The completely closed ask is then held in the ask press under pressure for approximately two hours during which time the acrylic resin fully cures and the teeth formerly held by the silicone rubber mold portion becomes embedded in the acrylic resin. FIG. 4 shows the mold at this point with denture 30 including teeth 20 and plate portion 32, and tinfoil layer 34. The denture 30 is recovered by carefully prying open the two halves of the flask at which time the cured denture slips easily out of the silicone rubber mold 26. The cured denture has an unusually smooth and clean surface.

In accordance with the process just described 34 pairs of dentures were fabricated. Additionally, 25 pairs of control dentures were fabricated in accordance with conventional practice.

The accuracy of the dentures produced with both the resilient mold process of this invention and conventional molding practice was measured by a standard test. As was discussed earlier, an instrument called an articulator is utilized in preparing trial dentures. Besides simulating the action of given patients mouths, the articulator provides a means for measuring variations in vertical occlusion between the trial denture -and the iinal denture. That measuring means comprises a flat plate and a pin known as the incisal pin. When the waxed-up master cast is ready to be invested it is placed on the articulator, if it is not already there, and the incisal pin adjusted so that it just barely touches the at plate. That is the zero setting. When the final denture has been made it is seated on the master cast and the assembly placed on the articulator in the same position that the waxed-up master cast and occupied. Differences in vertical occlusion between the trial denture and the final denture are reilected in the inability of the incisal pin to reach the zero setting. It is that dist-ance ybetween the plate and the pin that reflects vertical occlusal opening and is the measure of the deviation between the waxed-up trial denture stage and the final denture, which deviation is obviously attributable to the processing.

Changes in the vertical opening resulting from the fabrication of dentures Opening at Ineisal Number of Pin (MM.) Type of Mold Pairs of Dentures Average Most Frequent Silicone upper mold element 34 0. 561 0. 7 Gypsum upper mold element (controls) 0. 672 0. 7

The table and the test results show conclusively that the mold technique described in this application results in generally more accurate dentures. That, however, is not the only advantage obtained by following the teachings of this invention.

It is customary when stone is to serve as the upper half of the denture mold to vibrate the flask so that the stone will compact and settle without air bubbles. That vibration occasionally loosens teeth on the trial denture sufficiently to cause them to pull out of the trial denture and become lost in the fla-sking material. It is also the case that the stone expands in setting changing the position of the teeth in the mold by displacing the softer wax of the trial denture, thereby introducing error in the final denture. By utilizing the fluid polysiloxanes or other flexible mold forming materials of this invention such vibration is unnecessary, the distortion caused by expansion of the stone is avoided, and the loss of displacement of the teeth iS also avoided.

The use of flexible mold materials avoids the necessity of tinfoiling the lower half of the mold when forming the upperportion of the mold at the trial denture stage thereby preventing tinfoil or tinfoil substitutes from distorting the final denture or from being deposited on the teeth. Better retention of the teeth in the denture resin results and fewer crevices appear around the necks of the teeth.

And, since the wax of the trial denture does not penetrate a resilient rubber mold forming material its complete removal is more easily accomplished upon heating and flushing.

In accordance with the teachings of this invention it is possible to use pourable fluid self-curing acrylic resin for forming the denture whereas with conventional processes it is generally considered necessary to use a doughy partially polymerized heat-curing resin. Because of the lesser pressures needed with fluids to fully close the flask, the breaking and displacement of teeth and molds occas1oned by the higher pressures necessary to close dough filled flasks is greatly diminished.

Additionally, the time it takes to remove the denture from the mold is greatly reduced from that required by conventional procedure. Also there is a cleaner separation of the external surfaces of the denture, with an absence of plastic debris and roughness, from the mold. That simplifies cleaning and polishing and makes possible wider more economical use of preformed plastic patterns of buccal, labial, palatal and lingual contours.

Other advantages include the lessened tendency for denture teeth to loosen from silicone rubber molds than from plaster molds during the boil out and a decreased tendency of denture teeth, particularly those of procelain, to break or slip during packing and detlasking.

Another distinct benefit conferred by this invention is the ease with which duplicate dentures may be produced. While it is necessary to destroy plaster of Paris or stone upper molds in removing final dentures, that is not the case with a silicone rubber mold. In fact, the silicone rubber mold may be reused in forming new dentures as well as in the rebasing and relining of dentures which have begun to wear.

While I have specifically referred to only certain compositions in describing a preferred embodiment of my invention, it is apparent that other ingredients, ratios of ingredients, and materials may be substituted therefor. Thus, while various polysiloxane formulations may be used in the practice of this invention, other flexible mold forming compositions may be used as well. Also various other denture resin formulation-s other than the specific methyl methacrylate compositions described may be used as well.

While I do not intend to be limited to the following explanation, it is possible that the improved accuracy obtainable with the flexible mold and technique of this invention may be due to the tendency of a flexible mold to remain more closely in contact with the denture resin during all stages of its curing. Especially in the case of well known acrylic denture resins, during at least one stage of their curing some expansion occurs forcing the flask to open and driving the upper and lower mold portions apart. If a resilient mold such as that described is used, it can give sufliciently to take up the expansion without the flask being forced to open. In a later stage of its curing, the resins contract and tend to pull away from the mold surfaces. If, as is the case with stone or plaster molds, the mold portions have been driven apart, upon contraction of the resin the denture will no longer be firmly seated against both of the mold surfaces. In the case of the resilient mold and during the practice of the technique of this invention, the mold is 'sufficiently compressible and expandable so that it tends to remain in contact with the denture during all stages of its curing. That of course will tend to produce a more accurate denture than one fabricated in a conventional mold.

It is apparent that many variations from the embodiment described herein are within the scope and spirit of this invention. Therefore I intend to be limited only as may be necessary in view of the claims appended hereto.

I claim:

1. A denture forming process comprising the steps of casting and 4curing a resilient rubber heat and moisture resistant first mold portion against a trial denture waxed up to a master cast, said trial denture including a trial baseplate and denture teeth, portions of which denture teeth extend above and portions of which extend below the surface of said trial baseplate, said master cast being invested and forming a second mold portion, then removing the .trial baseplate from the first mold portion while retaining said denture teeth in said first mold portion, tinfoiling the surface of said second mold portion facing sa1d resilient rubber heat and moisture resistant first mold port1on, then filling the space from which said trial baseplate was removed between said second mold portion and sald first mold portion with a resinous denture forming material, said resinous denture forming material contacting and surrounding the portions of said denture teeth which extended below the surface of said trial baseplate, curing said resinous denture forming material to form, w1th said ldenture teeth, a complete denture, and then separatmg said complete denture from said first and second mold portions.

2. The denture forming proce-ss of claim 1 further characterized by urging said first and second mold portions toward each other under pressure while said resinous denture forming material is being cured between said rst and said second mold portions, said rst and said second mold portions exert pressure against said resinous denture forming material.

3. T he denture forming process of claim 1 wherein the trial baseplate is removed from said tirst mold portion by immersing said rst mold lportion in boiling water for a period of time long enough to melt said trial baseplate.

4. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of casting 10 and curing a resilient rst mold portion consists of casting and curing a silicone rubber forming formulation against said trial denture.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS Driscoll 18-34.1 Spinkle 18-34.1 Lambert 18 Lee 18-55.1 Van Rossem 18-55.1 Erdle 18-34.1 XR Zahn 18-55.1

ROBERT F. WHITE, Primary Examiner.

WILLIAM STEPHENSON, Examiner. 

1. A DENTURE FORMING PROCESS COMPRISING THE STEPS OF CASTING AND CURING A RESILIENT RUBBER HEAT AND MOISTURE RESISTANT FIRST MOLD PORTION AGAINST A TRIAL DENTURE WAXED UP TO A MASTER CAST, SAID TRAIL DENTURE INCLUDING A TRIAL BASEPLATE AND DENUTRE TEEH, PORTIONS OF WHICH DENTURE TEETH EXTEND ABOVE AND PORTIONS OF WHICH EXTEND BELOW THE SURFACE OF SAID TRIAL BASEPLATE, SAID MASTER CAST BEING INVESTED AND FORMING A SECOND MOLD PORTION, THEN REMOVING THE TRAIL BASEPLATE FROM THE FIRST MOLD PORTION WHILE RETAINING SAID DENTURE TEETH IN SAID FIRST MOLD PORTION, TINFOILING THE SURFACE OF SAID SECOND MOLD PORTION FACING SAID RESILITENT RUBBER HEAT AND MOISTURE RESISTANT FIRST MOLD PORTION, THEN FILLING THE SPACE FROM WHICH SAID TRIAL BASEPLATE WAS REMOVED BETWEEN SAID SECOND MOLD PORTION AND SAID FIRST MOLD PORTION WITH A RESINOUS DENTURE FORMING MATERIAL, SAID RESINOUS DENTURE FORMING MATERIAL CONTACTING AND SURROUNDING THE PORTIONS, OF SAID DENTURE TEETH WHICH EXTENDED BELOW THE SURFACE OF SAID TRIAL BASEPLATE, CURING SAID RESINOUS DENTURE FORMING MATERIAL TO FORM, WITH SAID DENTURE TEETH, A COMPLETE DENTURE, AND THEN SEPARATING SAID COMPLETE DENTURE FROM SAID FIRST AND SECOND MOLD PORTIONS. 